First S1 spoke a line of their monologue, then S2 said the next. They took turns until the end, which they recited together in sweet unison:

‘The heart is able to forgive and repair. It can change its shape to let us in.’

Claudia, Katie Casey, Robbie Schmidt and the Save Your Heart girls in the first row burst into applause. Smiling, S&S stood up and gave a modest little bow. The velvet curtains closed. The first full dress rehearsal of An Extract from the Works of Eve Ensler was complete.

And there was no way in hell it was getting me kicked out of St Mary’s.

Up in the lighting booth suspended above the audience seats, I stood next to Pat at the sound and lighting boards.

‘You’re the stage manager,’ I told him. ‘Can’t you do something to make that ending a little more … edgy? Project some satanic imagery behind them? Blast out Metallica’s “Enter Sandman” when they walk onstage? That warm yellow light is so friggin’ wholesome and heart-warming, it gives me stomach cramps.’

Pat switched the spotlight off and tugged his headphones down so they hung around his neck. ‘Cheer up!’ he said, clapping me on the back. ‘Claudia’s so intense, even without the stirrups, that after her everyone will need something a little softer.’ Leaning closer to me, he whispered, ‘But if people start to fall asleep I’ve got the Grand Theft Auto sound effects ready to go.’

It was Wednesday night. The dress rehearsal was over. It had run smoothly: everyone had been well behaved, smiling and enthusiastic. Father Hughes had watched the whole play from a third-row corner seat and, at the end, he stood up, did the sign of the cross to bless everyone and strolled out in contentment. Everything had gone well.

Now all the little Save Your Heart girls were hugging each other and saying, ‘Should we go get hot cocoa? Oh my gosh, we should TOTALLY get hot cocoa!’ I sat down at the edge of the lighting platform with my legs through the railings and my motorcycle boots dangling over the audience of empty seats and watched them.

Pat came over and sat next to me, dangling his Chuck Taylors.

‘You know what I think?’ he said. ‘I think you were lying.’

‘What? When?’

Pat looked at me in this way he has of looking at me … Priests and nuns might not have X-ray vision to see my leopard-print thong or my regrettable tattoo or my dark, twisted sinner’s soul and black heart, but Pat had already seen the thong and the tattoo – and sometimes I felt like he could read my mind, too.